XI
María del Pilar to the Rescue
At last, when the general confusion had subsided, I was able to impress upon the delightful pair that, if they would but speak very slowly, and kindly trouble themselves to give a word of three syllables, say, two of them (a punctilious habit disapproved in Andalucía) Señor Waring would be able to join the conversation. With true Spanish goodheartedness they did their best, though Heaven knows what it must have cost them. Dick also did his best, with a conscientious American pronunciation; but where tongues halted, eyes spoke a universal language, and we all got on so well that in ten minutes we might have known each other for ten years.
By the end of those minutes we were asked to the O'Donnel's sitting-room, which had been furbished up out of a bedroom; and there Dick brought the famous letter of introduction and the white paper parcel tied with pink ribbon.
My name had not been mentioned by Angèle. I was merely a “friend of Mr. Waring's”; and, it seemed, I had been designated vaguely thus in a previous letter in which our arrival had been prophesied. This had been Angèle's way of leaving it open for me to introduce myself as I pleased; but now there was no secret with which I would not have felt safe in trusting our old friends the O'Donnels, so I gave them my real name.
The Cherub's face lit up. “I knew your father well,” said he. “We learned soldiering together as boys, though he was four or five years my senior, and the hero of my youth. Our ideas”—--he [pg 73]coughed in an instant's embarrassment—“were different. This separated us. But I never forgot him. He was a great man; and it's an event to meet his son. When I saw you downstairs in the dining-room, it was like going back thirty years. Such a young man as you are now, was your father when I had my last sight of him. You are his living portrait.”
We shook hands; and I believe, with the slightest encouragement, the dear old fellow would have planted a kiss on each of my cheeks. That he did not, was a tribute to my English education.
The next thing was, that at Dick's request I was telling them everything; and as Pilar listened to the story which prefaced my errand in Spain, her eyes, which had been stars, became suns. When I spoke Carmona's name, she and her father uttered an exclamation.
“El Duque de Carmona!” echoed the Cherub.
“He!” cried Pilar. And they looked at each other.